Floor cleaning in public, commercial, institutional and industrial buildings have led to the development of various specialized floor sweeping and scrubbing machines. These machines include dedicated floor sweeping machines, dedicated floor scrubbing machines and combination floor sweeping and scrubbing machines.
FIG. 1 is a side view of an example of a dedicated floor sweeper 200 that is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,571,771, which is assigned to Tennant Company of Minneapolis, Minn. The sweeper 200 includes a rotating cylindrical brush 202 that contacts the floor 204 and throws loose debris into a hopper 206 which is periodically emptied either manually or through a motorized lift.
FIG. 2 is a side view of an example of a dedicated floor scrubber 210 that is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,016,310, which is assigned to Tennant Company. The floor scrubber 210 applies a cleaning solution from an onboard tank to the floor 212, agitates it with one or more rotating brushes 214 to loosen dirt that is adhered to the floor 212 and suspends it in the cleaning solution to form liquid waste. The liquid waste is then picked up with a vacuum squeegee 216 and stored in an onboard tank 218.
Combination floor sweeping and scrubbing machines were developed to avoid the necessity of having two machines. Some floor sweeping and scrubbing machines were created by mounting sweeping components to the front end of a dedicated scrubbing machine to making one large, multi-function machine. FIG. 3 is a side view of an example of such a machine 220 that is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,943,724, which is assigned to Tennant Company. The sweeping components, such as a dedicated sweeping brush 222 and a waste hopper 224 are borrowed from a dedicated sweeping machine and handle the sweeping operations on the floor. Scrubbing components of the dedicated scrubbing machine, such as a dedicated scrubbing brush 226, a vacuum squeegee 228, and a cleaning liquid dispenser, handle the scrubbing operations on the floor.
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a scrubbing machine 230 that is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,901,407, which is assigned to Tennant Company. The machine 230 uses two counter-rotating cylindrical brushes 232 to simultaneously scrub and sweep the floor. Water and detergent are sprayed on the floor ahead of the brushes to wet the floor for a scrubbing operation. The brushes 232 then scour the floor at the same time they are sweeping debris from the floor and into a waste hopper 234 located on a rear side of the brushes 232. A vacuum squeegee 236 removes liquid waste from the floor during the wet scrubbing and sweeping operations. The machine 230 is not configured to perform sweeping-only operations and the hopper 234, which must be removed manually from the machine for dumping, is not large enough to support pure sweeping operations. As a result, the machine 230 only provides limited sweeping capability requiring the use of a dedicated sweeper prior to performing the scrubbing/sweeping operation using the machine 230.
There exists a continuous demand for improvements to combination floor sweeping and scrubbing machines including, for example, simplifying operation of the machine including waste removal, improving maintenance access to components of the machine, providing features that prevent or reduce the likelihood of damaging the machine, and other improvements.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.